It's impossible to say today whether Silvio Berlusconi will fall as the result of a scandal that has its origins in his Caesar-like vision of power without limit or constraint - or whether he will succeed in regaining control over a crisis that for more than a month now has attracted headlines around the world and not just in Italy. What is certain is that a rift has emerged between the prime minister and the country and, even more importantly, between the leader and his supporters. It is a wound that could be fatal for a politician who for the past 15 years has conducted the most ambitious experiment in modern populism that the west has known.
In ensuring the constant consecration of The Leader before his people, every barrier between the public and the private had to be demolished. So when Berlusconi stood for election for the first time in 1994 he gave 50 million Italians the gift of his family photograph album. There were photos of Berlusconi as a child, of Berlusconi with his actress wife, and of Berlusconi the successful businessman. Now that potent mixture of the personal and political has become his undoing. Fate has imprisoned him in a mythical macho landscape that he constructed with his own hands, populated by young women and aspirant starlets, and rife with sexual innuendo.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/21/silvio-berlusconi-italy
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